Chapter Eight: Musical Maladies Part One

A/N: Special thanks to L1701E for letting me use his characters for this! Thanks man! This is for you!

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"I'm like, so glad we get to visit the mall!" Kitty chirped as the X-Men made their way through a mall.

"A mall, Kitty. Not, the mall." Jean corrected her. "We still can't go to the Bayville Mall anymore which is why we had to drive two towns over just to go shopping."

"A mall's a mall." Kitty shrugged.

"If you say so." Amira said. "The only malls I've ever been two were one or two back in Boston when I was still at the Massachusetts Academy."

"Not a lot of malls where you're from?" Scott asked.

"Not a lot of many things where I'm from." Amira said with equal parts sadness and bitterness.

"Well I just wanted to thank you for inviting us to come with you." Lina spoke up, shifting the conversation slightly.

"Hey any excuse to go shopping will do with Kitty." Rogue noted. Kitty just stuck out her tongue at her.

"Can we please sit down?" Kurt—in his holowatch appearance—groaned. "Before I get hernia?" He was carrying everyone's bags and boxes.

"We might as well stop for lunch." Scott agreed. "Let's go to the concession area."

As the X-Men sat down at a table need one of the eateries, they fond themselves confronted with a new problem.

"Hey Jabronis move off! This is my table!" The X-Men turned to see an angry looking kid with brown hair in a pony-tail. His blue eyes reflected a certain cockiness that promised trouble if he didn't get what he wanted.

"Your table?" Kitty asked. "Like, I don't see your name on it or anything."

"Your gonna see my name on your backsides if you don't move out!" He snapped at her.

"Look, I don't know who you are—" Scott started.

"The name's Wildfire, Kyle Wildfire." He said proudly. "Of the Wildfire Wrestling Dynasty!"

"Yeah…well I'm—"

"NO ONE CARES WHO YOU ARE JABRONI!" Kyle screamed in Scott's face, causing him to fall out of his seat.

"Hey!" Jean snapped as she leapt out of her seat. "I don't care who the hell you think you are but no one does that to Scott!" Kyle sneered at her.

"No one did that to Scott. I did that to Scott and I am not a 'no one'! I'm a Wildfire! A warrior!"

"I thought you said you were a wrestler." Amira pointed out.

"Same thing, jabroni." He scoffed at her.

"Okay, first off," Amira said calmly. "Making up words like that is dumb! And secondly wrestling is fake."

"What did you say?" Kyle asked slowly.

"Wrestling. Is. Fake." Amira repeated even slower.

"I'm gonna pound your face in!" Kyle yelled, red in the face.

"Look, why don't we all sit back and relax for a minute." Lina suggested calmly as she worked her way between Kyle and Amira. "There really isn't any reason for us to fight…"

"She insulted wrestling, of course there is!" Kyle snapped at Lina harshly. "If you're too gutless to fight, then get out of my way wimp!"

"Don't you insult her!" Amira shouted.

"Why? It's not my fault if she's a stinking pacifist. A coward…" That's when Amira hauled off and slugged him.

"You want some of this jabroni? You got it!" Kyle spat as he leapt at her.

"You don't know who you're dealing with!" Amira taunted as she went into a split, causing Kyle to sail over her.

"Neither do you!" Kyle responded when he got up again. His body seemed to crackle with electricity and he shaped it into a hammer-construct. Amira barely avoided becoming a pancake.

"Like, he's a mutant too!" Kitty exclaimed.

"Could you say that a little louder? I don't think everyone heard you!" Rogue hissed as people turned to watch and mutter.

"That's enough!" Scott said as he imposed himself between the two brawlers. "You're going to make a scene and make things worse for us!" Amira looked down and backed off.

"I'm not a coward!" Kyle roared. "I'm not afraid!"

"Kyle!" A red-haired boy shouted as he ran up to them. "That's enough."

"Jake, don't—" Kyle started to protest.

"Drop it." He hissed. "I'm sorry about this. My name's Jake, I'm Kyle's brother."

"Um could we hold off on the introductions for now?" Kurt asked as a small crowd started to gather.

"Oh, sorry! Paul, Craig could you take care of this?" Jake called. A pair of kids with black hair and a peculiar fashion sense headed over and stood in front of the crowd. A few moments later, the crowd dispersed.

"What the…" Kurt blinked.

"That takes care of that problem anyway." Jake said. "Let me introduce some friends of mine, Paul and Craig Starr."

The Starr brothers each had a five-pointed star over their right eyes, the only difference being that Paul's was black and Craig's was purple.

"They're mutants too?" Rogue asked questioningly.

"Great, so the cat's out of the bag." Craig muttered. Paul shrugged.

"Yeah, we are. We can fire lasers out of right eyes and can hypnotize people, which is how we convinced that crowd that they didn't see anything of note."

"I fly and make fire." Jake said. "And my brother can manipulate electricity and create constructs out of it."

"I noticed." Amira grumbled.

"I'm sorry about Kyle." Jake apologized. "He's a good guy deep down…"

"The Professor said the same thing about Magneto." Scott said archly.

"Hey, I know we all kind of got off on the wrong foot." Paul said, smiling a little. "But perhaps we can move past it and try again?"

"Sounds okay to me." Jean sighed, a little dreamily.

"Sure." Rogue said in the same tone of voice.

"Whatever you say." Kitty smiled. Craig looked at his brother in annoyance.

"Can't you turn that damn thing off?" Paul shrugged a little helplessly.

"It's pure charm, not something you can turn on and off."

"Oh brother." Amira rolled her eyes. Paul blinked.

"Why aren't you affected? I mean, I don't do this intentionally, but most girls I meet kind of go, well, you know—" He pointed at the X-Girls.

"Let's just say you aren't my type." Amira said.

"Well I don't think I'm there type either, not that I really would know their types one way or the other—"

"I prefer to keep different company." Amira restated.

"I don't follow." Amira decided that bluntness was her best friend in this situation.

"I like girls, you idiot."

"So do I but I don't see what that…oh." Paul blinked again.

"Do you get it now?" Amira asked with a little annoyance. "I'm a ho-mo-sexual!" She annunciated each part of the word. He blushed.

"Sorry. I mean I'm not sorry that you're—you know, 'cause there's nothing to be sorry about! It's great to be gay! I mean, not for me since I'm not but for you it's great because you are! It wouldn't be great for me—not that there's anything wrong with that—but…"

"Paul…" Craig growled. "You're embarrassing yourself. And me! Shut up!"

"Sorry." Paul said again, weakly.

"Look, as our way for apologizing for this whole mess, why don't you take these tickets?" Jake said as he fished into his pocket. "We kinda play in a band together and since there's a battle of the bands tournament coming up tomorrow night, maybe you'd like to come and check it out?"

"Sounds good to me!" Jean said as she took the tickets.

"Shouldn't we ask the Professor first?" Scott suggested but then withered under the glare of the X-Girls. "Never mind."

"Great!" Paul smiled. "We'll see you there." As the X-Men left a thought occurred to Paul. "Hey, where's Ace?"

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"It's nice meeting you girls." Ace Starr, cousin of Paul and Craig said with a toothy smile as he ran his hands through his brown and black, mane-like hair. "But I really have to get going. If you want, I've got some extra tickets for a battle of the bands contest tomorrow night. Would your four be interested?"

"Definitely." Monet grinned.

"Absolutely." Tarot agreed.

"Yes!" Roulette crowed.

"Catseye love to go." Catseye purred with contentment as she took hers.

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"Is everything ready?" The White Pawn of the Hellfire Club asked his ally. "The Hellfire Club has entrusted me with the task of destroying the X-Men and so I entrust the particulars to you. Do not fail."

The Pawn's ally grinned, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Trust me, this is one performance the X-Men will remember the rest of their lives." She grinned. "Too bad it won't be very long."

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A/N: Tune in next time when a special villainess appears on the orders of the Hellfire Club to smash the X-Men! Can the Starrs and Wildfires help?